OUR IMPACT

Think about your last time in the produce section of the grocery store. We’re guessing you walked past mountains of apples so round and shiny they looked cut from wax, lipstick red strawberries, and bunches of carrots suspiciously all the exact same length.

PSA – this isn’t what most produce looks like. On the farm, there’s natural variation in appearance, but supermarkets’ demand for aesthetic perfection results in a significant amount of produce going to waste. Estimates show that over 20% of perfectly good produce ends up in a landfill. The implications of this are profound: rotting food generates greenhouse gases, and growing crops that go uneaten wastes land, water, and energy.

Given the environmental impact of food waste, we've made it our mission to give funny looking fruit and veg our love. We save produce for all sorts of reasons including:

Size

Most retailers have a standard size for each item that they buy to keep displays photo ready. If the produce is too big, too small, or there’s a mix of different sizes, the order will get sent back to the supplier.

Shape

To a grocery store, if it’s not perfectly symmetrical, it’s not good to sell. A few misshapen items in a box can cause a supermarket to reject an entire shipment.

Peel

Weather can result in light scarring that does not impact the shelf life, taste, or nutritional content of produce. Unlike supermarkets, we abide by the philosophy: “Don’t judge an orange by its peel.”

Color

A splotch of red on a jalepeno? A tomato with uneven coloring? What grocery stores reject, we call produce with personality!

Excess Supply

Produce also goes to waste for economic reasons. For example, if the market is flooded with apples, and the price is lower than the cost of labor to pick, sort, pack, and deliver them, growers leave them in the orchard.

When you subscribe to Bad Apple, you’re playing a vital role in making the food system more efficient.